


Time of the Season

by ConstanceComment



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Break Up, Developing Relationship, Divorce, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 11:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18193958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstanceComment/pseuds/ConstanceComment
Summary: It’s the middle of the night on a Tuesday when Jack puts a ring in Gabe’s hand.“Don’t let me throw it out,” Jack says. “I want to get my money’s worth.”





	Time of the Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oricalcon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oricalcon/gifts).



> This was on my twitter. It really took off! Now it's been cleaned up, and it's here. But if you want to see the original, typos and all, [here it is.](https://twitter.com/Bargain_Brand/status/1108674362943725568?s=20)

It’s the middle of the night on a Tuesday when Jack puts a ring in Gabe’s hand.

“Don’t let me throw it out,” Jack says. “I want to get my money’s worth.”

It’s summer in the heartland. The war’s over, or about to be. Close enough to the end that people are remembering that once, they had priorities other than the next sunrise. That there’s supposed to be more to a relationship than sex and hope. It’s been long enough that Gabriel’s wife, and now Jack’s boyfriend, it seems, have realized that a gun is for defending a home, not for building one. They’ve just finished a war over why you don’t trust a weapons platform to raise your children, or to help you choose your security system. It makes sense why Jack and Gabriel have been left behind.

Gabe’s been crashing on Jack’s couch since they got back to the States. This morning, Vincent moved out, took his things into the city and left Jack behind in the house that Jack had told everyone he wanted to raise his children in. They’d bought it when they were young, saved up between Vincent’s job and Jack’s pay from the army. Their first home, as soon as Vincent was out of college. Jack had pictures in his bag that he carted all through the war, of Vincent carrying him over the threshold when he was still skinny.

Gabe didn’t hear what Vincent said when he was leaving. Gabriel doesn’t think his knowing would help anyone. Gabe’s got Jack sitting on the porch next to him, staring up into a sky still riddled with more ash than stars, light pollution from the city reflecting down onto the hot earth. Jack smells like strong, ugly booze, and Gabe is numb.

Jack takes a long drink from the bottle in his hand, and closes his eyes as his throat works, seeing nothing, trying to feel nothing.

The ring in Gabriel’s hand is cold and sharp, the inside engraved with something Gabriel won't let himself read.

“Are you going to sell it?” Gabe asks.

Jack doesn’t answer right away. He puts the bottle down with a gasp, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.

“Hell yeah,” Jack says. “That’s three months of my salary I want back. Wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel says. “She threw mine away, or melted it. I don’t know which version was true.”

Jack sucks on his teeth, a sympathetic hiss. But for Gabriel, the words and the story they describe are far away. They are part of a life that hasn’t been his for years. He missed his son learning to talk in a war zone. Gabe came home, and half of LA was gone. The coast was ravaged, and his family didn't need him anymore. His wife was a survivor, with a hate for anything that hadn’t helped her protect her child. And Gabriel’s son was half feral, as much a soldier as his father even at such a young age, wild eyed and hungry with contempt.

“I miss them,” Gabriel admits. “I think she would kill me if I came near her again, and I miss her.”

Jack snorts. “You miss what you want her to be. She already knows you’re fucked up. Shit, I wouldn’t let me near a kid either.” He holds out the bottle and Gabriel accepts, the ring in his palm clicking against the glass.

“Was it my fault, do you think?” Gabriel asks. “That he left? If I hadn't been…” He fumbles, gesturing vaguely in the dark.

“A sad piece of shit? A hot guy sleeping on our couch?” Jack shrugs. “Vincent was always jealous and afraid. Couldn’t stand me being away, having a life of my own,” he spits. “Like I was going to wake up and realize that there was life outside of Indiana.”

“Fuck,” Gabe says, “there’s life _inside_ Indiana?”

Jack laughs, startled and brittle. He socks Gabe in the shoulder, and takes the bottle back.

“I didn’t want another life,” Jack admits, bleak and plaintive. “I didn’t care about culture. All I wanted was him.”

There’s a pause, and for a second, the earth is still.

“How come he didn’t want me the same way?” Jack asks. His voice, suddenly is very small, and rough. “Why wasn’t I enough?”

For a moment, Gabriel just hurts. Deeply, and profoundly. Looks over at the man who’s saved his life so many times, who saved his life again when Gabriel didn’t have a home to go back to when the fighting stopped.

 _‘It’s not fair,’_ he thinks. _‘Nothing about this is fair.’_

Gabriel remembers, vividly, pressing Jack to his chest, skin to skin because the sludge in their veins felt like it was melting through them. Shivering and crying and holding on to the only friend that had survived with him, remembers Jack’s matted hair and the rank smell of fear.

Gabe thinks: _‘I wish this ring was for me. I wish I could’ve kept you safe from all of this. You are enough for me. You have always been enough.’_

And a thought so small and painful that Gabriel barely thinks it: _‘I think I would’ve been enough.’_

They missed each other by years that feel like inches.

“Gabe?”

Jack’s voice is stepping through broken glass.

“I’m sorry, man,” Gabriel says. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He reaches an arm out and wraps it around Jack’s shoulder, drawing him in until Jack’s leaning on him, chest heaving, body still. Gabriel wishes he knew the right litany to make this better.

It’s not the right time or place. Gabriel kisses him anyway. Lips pressed into the top of Jack’s head, just the wrong side of deniable.

There’s a hand on Gabe’s shirt, over his heart. It goes from flat to clawing, and the way Jack is shaking only gets worse.

Gabe wants to say: _‘You deserve better.’_

But he knows that what he really means is: _‘You deserve me.’_

Vincent might be throwing away someone Gabriel has killed for, but he's still the best Jack ever had, the high school sweetheart who waited until the reality didn’t match the fantasy.

The bottle falls over, rolling from the porch to the dirt. The earth drinks deeply, and Gabe smells alcohol and dust, the wood of the porch, the way the heat has touched everything. He breathes slowly and closes his eyes. Jack’s chin is digging into his chest. His hair is soft.

“I’ve got you,” Gabe tells his friend. He rubs a hand over Jack’s back, the motion familiar to them both. “You’ve got me.” He means it more than he could ever say.

It’s not the right time or place. But Jack kisses him anyway. Lips pressed into Gabe’s chest, near his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as an elaboration on a shared headcanon/AU with [Oricalcon.](https://twitter.com/Oricalcon)


End file.
